Style
Monday, July 18, 2016
In my long
career (1976 until recently perhaps 2008 when magazines collapsed) as a
magazine photographer I dealt with very good art (called also design) directors
with the best magazines in Canada, the US and Europe. One of the best ones was
(is as he is alive and well) Rick Staehling. I worked with him in a city
magazine, a business magazine and finally a travel magazine. Staehling went to
a very good design school, Art Center in Los Angeles, so he had an excellent
background. He also looked at many magazines and had a fondness for Esquire.
I remember
that sometime in the late 70s I showed up at his Vancouver office with my brand
new Mamiya RB-67 Pro-S. I told him that this was the ideal magazine camera as
it had interchangeable film backs (I could shoot colour and b+w) and that the
generous 6x7 cm format had an extra feature.
I could rotate the film back from vertical to horizontal which meant I
would be more likely to watch my back and shoot for any conceivable situation
be it a cover, a two page spread or a full bleed page vertical.
Staehling said
nothing but called me a few weeks later, “Alex, you know that new-fangled
camera you showed me? I think I have a job for it.” I have no memory of what
that job was but that Mamiya was one of the secrets of whatever success I
subsequently had even when I told other photographers who seemed to like their
more expensive Hasselblads that took that un-magazine like square format.
During
the years I developed several lighting styles to fit situations. I became very
good with the small (not quite 2x3 ft. soft box. Part of my technique was and
is to use it very close to my portrait subject. I became bored with this style
and opted for Hollywood style hard lights, focusing spotlights, Fresnel
spotlight and grid spots.
Staehling
became tired with this experimentation of mine and told me to stick to the soft
boxes.
This is
where we got into a massive argument and I have to admit that many years later
he was absolutely right.
For me the
Holy Grail of photography is the distinctive personal style. One should be able
to look at a photograph and guess who took it or at the very least discern the
influencing photographer. I told Staehling that the soft box was a difficult
light to use if one wanted a distinctive personal style. He adamantly disagreed
and since he was the man calling me for the jobs I succumbed to his
instructions.
Now in 2016
just about any lighting style has disappeared. Photographers take the camera
ads seriously and that with a Nikon GX-Mark III-F (equipped with overdrive) anything is possible once you
hold the camera in your hands. It can do everything.
Because of
this there is a proliferation of street photography, wildlife photography,
sunsets, fireworks, etc. But I see little well or interestingly lit portraits.
In a basic
camera course the average person must understand that the problem with photography
is that it has to show the reality we see in only two dimensions. When you use
a flat or central light on a person the overall look does not suggest the
curves of a person’s face and thus that depth that is the third dimension.
I am showing
here a portrait I took of Bronwen Marsden with my Mamiya RB-67 Pro SD and that
aforementioned soft box equipped with one flash.
The decisive moment
The decisive moment
